Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Cold Creek Manor Blu-ray Movie Review

The Stylist of Decay

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 17, 2013

Cold Creek Manor (hereafter, "CCM") was the last major studio production helmed by the talented British director Mike Figgis. Its commercial failure is no doubt much of the reason for Figgis' disappearance from mainstream filmmaking. After reaching the apex of his commercial career in 1995 with Leaving Las Vegas, Figgis oscillated for almost a decade between the offbeat but star-driven vehicles that had first brought him notice (like the 1990 police drama, Internal Affairs, that helped revive Richard Gere's film career) and bold experimental films that took him further away from the mainstream (e.g., the 2000 mindbender Timecode, where the same story played out in synchronized continuous takes simultaneously in four quadrants of the screen). After CCM recouped less than its production budget in ticket sales, Figgis returned to his native England, where he teaches and directs TV, documentaries, commercials and experimental film.

Critics savaged CCM for the numerous thriller cliches and improbabilities in Richard Jefferies' script. They weren't wrong, but you don't watch a Figgis film for clockwork plotting. You watch it to surrender to the director's slyly seductive sense of atmosphere. Stormy Monday (1988), the British film noir that introduced Sean Bean to a mainstream audience, has a meandering plot, but you're never bored, because Figgis so effectively immerses you in the seedy Newcastle underworld. Internal Affairs almost loses the thread of its investigation into police corruption while Figgis luxuriates in the evil of Gere's bent cop, Dennis Peck. The little-seen Liebestraum (1991) so thoroughly lives up to its name (literally, "dream of love") that viewers either yield to the dream or give up halfway through. And, of course, Leaving Las Vegas netted Figgis Acadamy Award nominations for writing and directing (and star Nicolas Cage an acting Oscar) because of Figgis' ability to create romance out of the tragic relationship between a hooker and a terminal alcoholic.

CCM is minor Figgis, but it still has his signature brooding atmosphere, along with interesting performances from a talented cast. For reasons I'll discuss below, the story has acquired additional resonance that the filmmakers could not have anticipated at the time and that give the film an extra kick.

The "manor" of the title is a derelict country mansion acquired by the Tilson family: Cooper (Dennis Quaid), a documentary filmmaker; his wife, Leah (Sharon Stone), a corporate executive who has decided to quit the rat race and spend more time with her family; their daughter, Kristen (a young and pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart); and her younger brother, Jesse (Ryan Wilson). Like many growing families, the Tilsons decided to flee Manhattan for a quieter life. The proceeds from selling their cramped urban residence are enough to buy and renovate an enormous property with substantial acreage in rural upstate New York.

The new house known as "Cold Creek Manor" doesn't have literal ghosts, but it has a history. Generations of the Massie family lived there, raising and slaughtering sheep. Generations of Massies are buried in a graveyard behind the house, and it's a fitting image for a family that has run its course. The most recent Massie, Dale (Stephen Dorff), lost the property in a bank foreclosure, after his wife and children left him. Dale ultimately went to prison for vehicular manslaughter. All in all, he confirmed the predictions of his bilious father (Christopher Plummer), who always said Dale wouldn't amount to anything.

The elder Massie is now bedridden in a nursing home, where he drifts in and out of the present. The great Christopher Plummer is almost unrecognizable until his distinctive voice pierces the makeup. Then, in a few pointed scenes, he gives a master class on how to create a memorably vicious character with just dialogue and expressions. (Plummer was performing King Lear at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival near where CCM filmed in Canada, which is how the production managed to snag him for a few days of filming. His evil cackle echoes through the whole movie.)

Just as the Tilsons are settling into their new home, Dale Massie is released from prison and reappears on their doorstep. Borrowing elements from both the Scorsese version of Cape Fear and Straw Dogs (either version), Dale commences a campaign of harassment and intimidation designed to drive the Tilsons out of the house and allow Dale to reclaim it so that he can prove to his father that he didn't let down the family. For a long time, he is careful not to overstep the law (or at least not to leave evidence), leaving the town sheriff, Ferguson (Dana Eskelson), unable to intervene. Dale's current girlfriend, Ruby (Juliette Lewis), a waitress at the local diner, is vocal in support of her man, despite (or perhaps because of) being an obvious victim of battering.

When their fight with Dale Massie escalates into violence (and, adding to the terror, additional facts about Dale's dark past are revealed), Cooper and Leah Tilson are equally shocked to find themselves battling a madman, but at least initially they have opposite reactions. Leah wants to flee back to civilization, while Cooper insists on making a stand in defense of hearth and home. Eventually the entire family contributes to the common defense. ("We have brilliant children!" Cooper tells Leah, after Kristen and Jesse supply crucial information.)

Most criticisms of the film focus on the later portion, in which Dale Massie fails to act with "common sense" (to use Ebert's phrase). Then again, a rational person wouldn't behave as Dale does in CCM. Even Dale himself had enough sense not to behave that way when he first appeared and was still capable of exercising a modicum of self-control. In thrillers, as in life, people sometimes just lose it.

A little after the midpoint of the film, a critical scene occurs in the town diner, where Dale successfully riles up the crowd against the Tilson family, reinforcing their sense of helpless isolation. Dale may not be the most popular man in town, but he's a Massie—and the Massies have been there for generations, whereas the Tilsons are outsiders. In the course of mocking Cooper and his family, Dale reveals the bargain basement price they paid for Cold Creek Manor after the bank foreclosed. This was 2003, before the wave of foreclosures that began a few years later and eventually triggered the financial meltdown of 2008. If the economics of the Tilsons' windfall were suspicious to the diner crowd then, they would be incendiary now, when every victim of a foreclosed mortgage is presumed to have been cheated somehow. Today, you listen to Dale's speech, and the crowd's hostility feels even more intense. For them, the Tilsons are not longer just outsiders; they're carpetbaggers and thieves.

Cold Creek Manor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cold Creek Manor was shot by Declan Quinn, the stylish cinematographer who photographed Leaving Las Vegas for director Figgis and has worked extensively with directors Mira Nair and Paul Weitz (including the upcoming Tina Fey comedy, Admission). Quinn is an expert at achieving the brooding, textured look that is the ideal complement to Figgis' style. Here, with a big studio budget at his disposal, Quinn also achieved a smooth, polished product, though not necessarily one that pops off the screen.

The image on Disney's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray shows finely resolved detail, black levels that accurately represent Quinn's and Figgis' suggestive use of shadows, both inside the Cold Creek Manor estate and in many thickly wooded exteriors, and rich but not overly saturated colors to convey the natural environment in which the Tilsons have now made their home. Although (or perhaps because) the film was completed photochemically rather than on a digital intermediate, proper densities were achieved in camera, and the film's grain pattern is fine and natural, even in darker scenes. There is nothing to suggest that any filtering or high-frequency roll-off has been performed, and no evidence of artificial sharpening. Nor did I observe any compression errors (although lately I have begun to notice a tendency by screenshot jockeys to zoom on a lossy still until the image begins to dissolve, then call it "macroblocking"). CCM is one of the better efforts I have seen from Disney on a catalog title to date. Whatever issues one might have with the film, there should be no complaints about its visual representation on Blu-ray.

Cold Creek Manor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Apart from the dialogue, which is always clear, the crucial component of CCM's DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is the foreboding score that Figgis composed himself. As Figgis relates in his commentary, the score became a bone of contention with the studio, which found it too downbeat—an issue that Figgis addressed by the simple device of shifting portions from a minor to a major key. While the score brings the necessary elements that music typically supplies in a thriller, it also adds a distinctive note of melancholy, a wordless reminder that the Tilson family has unwittingly stepped into the final act of a multi-generational tragedy afflicting the Massies. The score doesn't forgive Dale Massie for his crimes, but it does provide him with an elegy.

As far as surround effects are concerned, Figgis appears to belong to the school of filmmaker that prefers to keep his viewer looking forward. The surrounds are used to provide a general sense of ambiance and expand the presence of the score, but discrete surround effects are not emphasized.

Cold Creek Manor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Mike Figgis: Figgis provides a low-key, nuts-and-bolts description of the experience of making CCM, with specifics on the casting, production, logistics, scoring and especially the process of editing the film into its final shape, which involved several key changes, including both the opening and the conclusion. Ironically, Figgis says that the experience of making CCM was his best experience working with a studio. Presumably he did not know, when he recorded this commentary, that it would also be his last (at least to date).



• Cooper's Documentary (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 7:12): This featurette focuses on the various types of documentary footage shot by Cooper Tilson that appears in the film. Some of it was shot by Figgis, who is himself a documentary filmmaker, on weekends during production. Other portions were filmed by Dennis Quaid, in character, using a special rig developed by Figgis.



• Rules of the Genre (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 7:58): Expanding on various observations in his commentary, Figgis gives his take on the thriller convention, with additional comments from Jefferies, Stone, Quaid and Plummer.



• Alternate Ending (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 4:14): This is the film's original ending. Figgis discusses in the commentary why it was replaced, and the existing ending is clearly superior.



• Deleted Scenes (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 8:31): Perhaps the most notable deleted scene is the one entitled "The Struggle", which Figgis discusses in the commentary. The absence of such a scene was criticized at great length by Roger Ebert in his review of CCM, but it turns out that Figgis cut it on purpose, because it slowed down the film at a crucial juncture.
• Introduction
• Mrs. Tilson's Refreshments
• The Snake Catchers
• Trip to the Store
• Last Rites
• A Struggle
• The Staircase



• Sneak Peeks: At startup, the disc plays trailers for Frankenweenie and ABC on Blu-ray, along with an anti-smoking PSA, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button. The trailers are available from the bonus features menu, along with trailers for The Avengers, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on Blu-ray, Castle, Season 4 on DVD and ABC on DVD.

Cold Creek Manor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

CCM isn't the kind of thriller you watch for shocks or surprise. The villain is clearly identified, and it isn't hard to see where he's headed or how he'll get there. The tension comes from watching him work himself up to the necessary emotional pitch and in discovering the twisted family history that made him what he is. All the while, a normal family can't believe what's happening to them, and the rest of the town looks away. Figgis excels at this kind of brooding, paranoid milieu, and it will be a long time (if ever) before he gets another budget of this magnitude. For all the script's cliches, CCM is worth your time, because the director elevates the material. Recommended, with appropriate disclaimers.